Jackson: Record sales surge

Michael Jackson's sales have instantly seen a massive increase as a result of his death.

This morning, Jackson's albums had taken 14 of the top 20 places on the Amazon.co.uk sales chart - even though his commercial appeal which had been largely in the doldrums for years as his strange private life overshadowed his music.

The lack of new material for many years also contributed to the public indifference, although this started to reverse as Jacko fever began to grip following the announcement of his record-breaking run of O2 shows.

Today the Amazon chart was topped by his first solo album, Off The Wall, which features tracks such as Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough and She's Out Of My Life.

It was followed by his 1987 album Bad and in third position was Thriller, the biggest selling album of all time, with global sales estimated anywhere between 50 million and 100 million due to the vagaries of how album sales were counted historically.

In fact, a further two copies of Thriller figure in the top 20, which also features an array of compilations of his material, including the recently released King Of Pop at number eight.

Jackson's most recent studio album, Invincible, is at nine, demonstrating the overwhelming interest in his heritage, rather than his later recordings.

Gennaro Castaldo of retailer HMV said: "We always find where a great icon dies that there's a massive uplift in their music sales as fans want to connect and express their grief through the records.

"We've seen this with people like John Lennon, Elvis, Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra over the years. With Michael Jackson in particular, he was just on the cusp of a big comeback anyway and we were already beginning to see a lift in sales.

Now, with downloads and the instant access they give, we can probably expect the charts to light up with his songs.

"The official top 10 and 20 could be dominated by his tracks and we will probably find the album charts will have high entries for Thriller and King Of Pop over the coming days because his music has not only an army of fans but also a broad appeal."

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